Blood donation rules continue to exclude healthy donors

THE Red Cross needs more blood. It always does, but as winter approaches and regular donors fall ill, the need is especially high.

I’m a fit, healthy, 25-year-old man. My blood type, A Positive, is the second-most common and in constant demand. A recent blood test shows me to be healthy and clean, but the law forbids me from donating.

The reason I’m forbidden is that I’m gay.

I do all the right things to protect myself, including regular testing and safe sex with my long-term partner. But still, I’m not allowed to help those in need.

The news.com.au office was recently told we’d all be able to go as a group to donate blood.

I wasn’t the only one who had to raise my hand and say I’m not allowed to donate.

It’s a horrible feeling to be told that your blood is presumed to be too risky to help someone in need.

The amount of blood taken from me to prove I’m clean as a whistle.Source:Supplied

WHY CAN’T WE DONATE?

Eighty per cent of new HIV diagnoses in Australia are attributed to male-to-male sexual activity.

Thanks to a rigorous screening process, only one person has been given tainted blood from a transfusion in the last 30 years.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), which oversees blood policy, is understandably concerned that by opening up blood donations to gay men, it will increase the chances of HIV-tainted blood making it into the nation’s supply.

(The Red Cross goes to great lengths to point out that the ban isn’t technically on gay men, but on “men who have sex with men”. But really, what’s gayer than two dudes having sex?)

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This logic is understandable, but in 2014, still woefully misguided and well behind the times.

There is a blanket ban on men giving blood if they’ve had any sexual contact with another man in the past 12 months.

For most men, including me, this isn’t an option. (At least not at this stage in my relationship, but if sitcoms have taught me anything it can’t be far away.)

The 12-month window refers to the length of time a person may be infected with HIV before the virus shows up in test results.

GPs and sexual health clinics put the actual window at three months, but even this is playing well on the safe side.

Happy and healthy: Australian couple Paul McCarthy (L) and Trent Kandler celebrate after being the first Australian couple to marry in New Zealand. Picture: Hagen HopkinsSource:Getty Images

The Red Cross, along with Australia’s peak HIV research body, The Kirby Institute, has previously asked the TGA to lower this window to six months.

The submission was made on sound scientific grounds and had input from several groups whose sole interest is to stop the spread of HIV in Australia. The submission was rejected.

A spokesman for The Red Cross told me the organisation still believes in lowering the window to six months, but even this is behind the times.

Professor David Cooper, head of The Kirby Institute and one of Australia’s leading experts on HIV, believes even six months is a longer wait than necessary for gay men.

“It’s definitely over the top,” he told me. “With fourth generation testing we’ve got a much shorter window of just a few weeks now ... The window could definitely be lowered.”

Rob Lake, executive director of the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations, agrees.

“We were very disappointed by the TGA’s decision. We thought it really didn’t reflect a very good scientific analysis. I think it reflected a very conservative assessment.

“Increasingly we see better screening technology being used. The risk balance is set too sharply.”

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IS A BLANKET BAN EVEN NECESSARY?

There is an inherent level of trust in every blood donation.

We trust a businessman when he says he hasn’t slept with a sex worker in Southeast Asia.

We trust a backpacker who says she hasn’t injected intravenous drugs or recently got a new tattoo.

We trust the baby boomer when he says he didn’t spend more than six months in the UK between 1980 and 1996.

Even with this level of trust, all blood donations go through a rigorous screening process before they’re given to someone in need.

But still, we don’t trust gay men when they say they’ve done all the right things to make themselves suitable donors.

I have the proof, but no one is willing to look at it.

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Some gay men certainly engage in risky sexual activities — as do heterosexual men and women — but gay men are dismissed as suitable donors out of hand, without delving into their individual histories to see if they’re safe options.

Are blood donation centres so run off their feet that they can’t ask a few more questions or look at a note from a GP?

They can’t be, or they wouldn’t be making the desperate call for more donors.

We’ve come a long way on gay rights in Australia, but it’s still incredibly difficult to grow up queer in this country.

Gay men and women are significantly more likely to suffer from depression and commit self-harm than their straight friends.

The leading factor in the poor mental health of LGBTIQ people is the feeling of seclusion, isolation and discrimination that goes hand-in-hand with being gay in Australia.

Allowing gay men to donate would have a small but important impact on Australia’s blood supply stocks, while remaining completely safe if the right safeguards are put in place.

At the same time it would have a profoundly positive impact on the thousands of men who have been told for too long that they’re not good enough to donate.

Seventeen thousand Australians donate blood each week. With cold and flu season approaching, around 1000 of those people will be forced to put off donating until their symptoms ease.

You can’t tell me there aren’t 1000 gay men in Australia who couldn’t fill that void.

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